


i know what's best for me (but i want you instead)

by yegelsecaller



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Force Bond (Star Wars), Hurt/Comfort, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-15
Updated: 2019-11-15
Packaged: 2021-01-31 00:21:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,736
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21437098
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yegelsecaller/pseuds/yegelsecaller
Summary: Rey continued to glare at the figure, and he almost appeared to chuckle. “You still want to kill me,” he stated.“That’s what happens when you’re being hunted by a creature in a mask,” she spat back at him, growing more frustrated by the minute.With a smooth gesture, he removed the helmet, and suddenly, Rey’s world came to a crashing halt.It was him. Her…soulmate.
Relationships: Kylo Ren/Rey, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 10
Kudos: 185
Collections: Reylo Prompt Fills (@reylo_prompts)





	i know what's best for me (but i want you instead)

**Author's Note:**

> Based on the following prompt from @reylo_prompts:
> 
> “Rey’s dreamed of her soulmate every night of her life but has never been able to feel their bond. Everyone in the galaxy is said to have one, so she assumes he’s died…until the day she wakes up in an interrogation room and sees Kylo Ren take his mask off.”

_“I told myself “I won’t miss you”_

_But I remember what it feels like beside you._

_I really miss your hair in my face,_

_And the way your innocence tastes._

_And I think you should know this –_

_You deserve much better than me.”_

***

As she came to, she realized that she was no longer in the forest on Takodana. Dazed, she looked around the room and her eyes came to rest on a figure garbed in black. The figure sat below her line of sight, and she had to strain to look at him.

Without a word, the figure stood up and looked at her.

“Where am I?”

“You’re my guest,” he replied matter-of-factly.

She glared at the masked figure. “Where are the others?”

The figure huffed. “You mean the murderers, traitors and thieves you call friends? You’ll be relieved to hear I have no idea.

Rey continued to glare at the figure, and he almost appeared to _chuckle. _“You still want to kill me,” he stated.

“That’s what happens when you’re being hunted by a creature in a mask,” she spat back at him, growing more frustrated by the minute.

With a smooth gesture, he removed the helmet, and suddenly, Rey’s world came to a crashing halt.

It was _him. _Her…_soulmate._

As a child on Jakuu, Rey had learned all about soulmates from Unkar Plutt’s cronies. It was said that every person in the galaxy had a soulmate, and that when you met them, you would share an unbreakable bond. As an orphan, Rey had grown up hoping to find her soulmate but had never felt the way the world was supposed to turn on its head when you first encountered them. She had begun to assume that her soulmate had died, leaving her truly alone in the galaxy. Yet this didn’t stop her of dreaming of who she assumed her soulmate was almost every night. It was cruel, the way he seemed to worm his way into her dreams even on the most sleepless of nights. He looked almost princely, with his wavy jet-black hair and long, regal nose. And those _lips. _Those plush lips practically screamed to be kissed, and it wrenched her heart to know that she would likely never feel them on hers.

And now, she was staring right at him. _She was strapped to a kriffing chair and her soulmate was trying to interrogate her._

He must have known when he brought her aboard the ship. He _must have. _

Rey couldn’t even begin to navigate the emotions roiling in her gut. Relief, betrayal, joy, hurt, confusion, _tenderness, devastation…_and so she gulped and continued to stare at him, unable to form a coherent sentence.

As she continued to glare at him, still completely in shock, he suddenly seemed to _push _himself into her mind. “You’re so lonely…so afraid to leave…At night, desperate to sleep…you saw me in your dreams…I see it…I see everything. I know you as well as you know me.”

“Don’t try to tell me you know me,” Rey spat angrily at him. “I’ve spent my entire life thinking my soulmate was _dead_, only to find out that he’s a monster in a mask who seems intent on killing me and all of my friends. I don’t even know your _name _and I can’t seem to decide whether I want to kiss your or kill you.” She bit off the last words, unsure of why that sentence had even left her lips.

The stranger stood up and walked over to her. Kneeling, he brought his face to within inches of hers. “Don’t be afraid. I feel it too. I feel the conflict. I also spent my life seeing a soulmate I never thought I would meet. I thought the dreams were just another torture device thrust upon me by my master. But when I saw you in the forest, I…” he trailed off and looked intently at her, almost as though he expected her to understand.

“You _what?” _Rey retorted. “Decided that _kidnapping me _would be a good way to let me find out we were soulmates?”

He looked at her, amusement playing in his eyes. “Well, you were trying to shoot me, and it seemed like the only way to talk to you was to disable you and bring you here. And you have information I need.”

“What do you mean, _the only way to talk to me? _You could have taken your mask off in the forest and I would have known! Instead, you _force stunned me_ and brought me back to a kriffing _interrogation room. _Just _who _do you think you are?”

He studied her, his ears reddening above those gorgeous dark waves. “My name is Kylo Ren. And you’re Rey. The girl I’ve already heard so much about.”

“How do you know my name?” She glared at him. “Who is this “master” you keep talking about? You make it seem like all of this is his fault.” Angrily, she tried to push herself into his mind as he had done to her on Takodana just minutes before. To her surprise, although she met some resistance, she was able to push past his defenses and see into his thoughts.

As she reached into his feelings, she began to see the same loneliness she had felt since she was a lone child fighting to survive on Jakku. His childhood had spat back out the masked would-be villain in front of her, and while it didn’t excuse the atrocities he had committed in the name of the First Order, it did explain some of them. He had been sinking under the weight of the expectations that came with the Skywalker name, and rather than ease the burden, his family had foisted yet more expectations on him. It was a miracle that he hadn’t broken earlier.

As she continued to pick through his thoughts, she also saw herself. On sleepless nights when the weight of expectation became too much to bear, she saw him thinking of her, trying to convince himself that she was real, that eventually they would be together. Her breath caught in her throat when she realized that this truly _wasn’t _a one-sided experience. When she finally pulled herself out of his mind and really _looked _at him, it was like seeing him again for the first time. Gone was the monster in the mask, instead replaced by a scared boy who was just trying to live up to the expectations that had been thrust upon him since an early age. Her breath caught in her throat as she finally tried to speak. “Your name isn’t really Kylo Ren. Why didn’t you tell me your real name?”  
  


“Because I don’t deserve the name of someone whose expectations I couldn’t live up to,” he replied, his voice catching as he admitted to the failure he still felt.

“Ben. It’s time to let go of the past. Now that we’ve finally found each other…don’t you think it’s time for us to move past who we used to be so that we can become who we’re supposed to be?”

Without moving his eyes from hers, his hand moved to unshackle her wrists, but stopped before he unlatched them. She could feel his breath hot on her neck, and she forced herself to continue breathing normally. His gloved fingers grazing her wrists felt _electrifying, _and she felt herself becoming wet at the thought of those hands moving over her body.

“Rey, I don’t think that I can leave the path I’m on now. But I can let you leave. It’s the most I can do.”

“Ben, please…come with me.”

“I can’t. I’m going to leave this room and in five minutes, a weak-minded Stormtrooper is going to come in to guard you. Given how easily you slipped past my defenses, it shouldn’t be too much effort for you to break his mind and escape.”

Before she could get in another word, he turned on his heel and swept out of the room. Rey watched him leave, confusion still swirling in her mind. What had just _happened?_ All her life, she’d dreamed of meeting her soulmate, and now that she’d met him, she had no idea how she was supposed to react. What kind of cruel cosmic joke was it, that her soulmate happened to be the leader of the very army she was fighting? Fighting back tears, Rey steeled herself and waited for the Stormtrooper to arrive. When he did, she easily disabled him as Kylo had said she would be able to, and she moved to escape from the painful prison she had been kept in.

***

It had been no more than a few days since Kylo had run head first into his soulmate on Takodana. He still hadn’t quite wrapped his head around it, but the more he thought, the more he realized that he couldn’t live without her. At first, she had been as angry as a spitting tooka-cat when the strange bond connecting them manifested. And who could blame her? He _was _the monster she had told him he was. But as the days wore on, something in her had started to soften. She sat in front of him now, half-wrapped in a ragged blanket. She looked sorrowful, almost as though she had lost something.

“I thought I’d find answers here,” she whispered. “I was wrong. I’ve never felt so alone.”

“You’re not alone,” he found himself replying.

“Neither are you.”

Her breath caught, and she moved to reach out with her hand. Slowly, he removed one of his gloves, his hand shaking as he did so. As they touched hands through the bond, Kylo’s entire world shook. In an instant, he saw their pasts and futures collide in a technicolor vision, and he breathed sharply at the onslaught on images. He looked into Rey’s eyes and realized that she was experiencing the same onslaught of images, feelings and physical sensations that he was. She too breathed in sharply, and for a moment, neither of them moved or spoke.

Carefully, Rey reached her hand further out, far enough for her to lace her fingers through his. As she did so, both of them gasped at the sensation.

“Ben.”

“Rey.”

Slowly, Rey stood up from her makeshift stool and moved so that she was straddling his hips. He drew in a deep breath as she settled, and cautiously rested his free hand on her hip. Their fingers remained intertwined, and Rey lifted her left hand to touch the side of his face, gazing at him with something close to fascination.

“I…I had no idea that it was supposed to feel like this. When we first met in the interrogation room, I…I thought that somehow, the galaxy had made a mistake. That we couldn’t possibly be soulmates. That it would be _cruel _to make two people on opposite sides of a war fall for one another. But what I just saw…” She trailed off, tears in her eyes. So - she had seen it too. She had seen them standing together as one.

Silently, he pulled her into him and brushed her lips lightly with his own. A wave of shock pulsed through her body at the touch, and for a moment, he worried that he had misinterpreted what he had seen. But a second later, Rey practically _melted_ into the kiss, her lips parting at a soft nudge from his tongue. She pulled herself closer, pressing herself into his chest and as the kiss deepened, she ran her fingers through his hair, gently tugging on it as she did.

“Ben,” she breathed. “It isn’t too late. I – “

Before Rey could finish her thought, the bond began to dissolve, and Kylo was left alone, wishing for the hundredth time that he could see her in person rather than through the ephemeral bond.

***

As Snoke’s Praetorian guards advanced upon them, Rey and Kylo took up a defensive position, back to back with sabers ignited. As the guards drew even with them, Rey shifted to an attacking stance and met the first Praetorian’s blow with her saber. When the blow was ineffective, she fell backward, gripping Kylo’s thigh for support. Knowing full well that they were outnumbered, Rey remembered Luke’s teachings.

_Breathe. Just breathe._ _Stretch out with your feelings._

As she did so, she felt a _hunger _in Kylo that matched the hunger she had felt as an orphan on Jakku. But this hunger had nothing to do with sustenance. This was a raw, tormented hunger, the hunger of a beast finally unleashed.

Two guards rushed her at once, and she returned her focus to the battle at hand. As she felled the last of her guards, she realized that Ben was in trouble, and her heart jumped out of her chest at the thought of him dying.

“Ben!” she cried, hurling her lightsaber across the room to him. He caught it easily and ignited the saber, destroying the guard in one fell swoop.

As they stood amid the wreckage they had created together, Rey felt a sense of joy begin to rise in her chest. _Surely _this would mean they could finally be together. As she remembered the Resistance ships being fired upon, she cried out to him. “The fleet! Order them to stop firing – there’s still time to save the fleet!”

But Ben wasn’t paying attention. He walked slowly towards the throne, towering over the body of his old master.

“Ben?” she whispered, terrified.

“It’s time to let old things die,” he replied. “Snoke, Skywalker.” He walked towards her. “The Sith. The Jedi. The Rebels. Let it all die. Rey…” he reached out with his hand as she had done just yesterday. “I want you to join me. We can rule together and bring a new order to the galaxy.”

Rey’s heart pounded in her chest. “Don’t do this, Ben.” Her voice caught in her throat as she fought back tears. “Please don’t go this way.”

“You still _holding on. _Rey, _let go.”_

“I can’t, Ben. You know I can’t. Please don’t make me make this choice.”

As Kylo continued to talk, Rey almost felt as though she was no longer in her body. Like she was watching a horror-holo play out in front of her. The hitch in Kylo’s voice was the only thing that brought her back to the throne room.

“Join me,” he pleaded. “Please.”

As Rey had the heartbreaking realization that she could never be with her soulmate, she closed her eyes and reached out her hand, knowing that betraying his trust in her would be the only way for her to truly escape.

***

As Kylo watched the door of the Falcon close, he felt a gripping pain in his stomach that had nothing to do with the earlier battle. Rey had betrayed him after they had fought so perfectly together to defeat Snoke and his Praetorian guards. Now, he realized that she had finally decided to shut him out of the bond. And why wouldn’t she? She had called him a monster and she was right. No wonder she had refused his request to join him. He had thought that after they touched hands, she had felt the same as he did, and it hurt more than he cared to admit that she was finally seeing him for who he really was – a monster in a mask.

***

As the weeks wore on, Kylo continued to see glimpses of Rey in the seconds before she managed to slam the bond shut. Rey training with FN-2187. Rey doing piloting drills with Poe Dameron. Rey eating alone in the cafeteria, a wistful look in her eyes. Rey in her quarters, a space that looked as though she had been too scared to settle in. Rey gracefully removing her arm wraps before she went to bed. Rey crying into her pillow at night, whispering his name as she did.

That last vision had wrenched his gut as surely as Chewie’s bowcaster once had, and he once again found himself resenting himself for what he had become. Since Snoke’s death, a new master had arisen, a master more powerful than Snoke could have ever hoped to be. But while Snoke had been cruel and cold, Palpatine was something more, something ancient. Something so vindictive and calculating that even Kylo began to fear the evil within. And so, Kylo began to formulate a plan to defeat him. He knew that he would need Rey on his side, but had no idea how he would even begin to accomplish that, given her obvious desire to never speak with him again.

***

That evening, Kylo was just starting to remove his clothes to get into the ‘fresher when he felt the bond connecting them.

“Rey,” he started. “Please don’t shut me out. We need to talk.”

Rey glared angrily at him. “I suppose you’re here to tell me you’re working with _him _now? Someone more evil than even Snoke was? And you’re going to try to convince me to join you again.

Kylo took a deep breath and looked up at her. “I just want you to know – I think you deserve much better than me. I’m not here to ask you to join me in the way that you think. I’m here to ask you to help me defeat Palpatine.” His gaze lingered on her as he awaited her response.

Rey continued to glare at him, but her eyes had started to soften. “What do you mean, “defeat him?” Isn’t he your master?”

Kylo sighed. “He is. But I – “ he cut off as Rey walked right up to him, her nose almost touching his chin.

“I told myself I wouldn’t miss you. But I remember what it feels like beside you. I remember the feel of us back to back, fighting the Praetorian guards as though we were two limbs of one body. Ben Solo, you broke my heart when you asked me to choose you over the people I’ve come to call my family. To go against everything I believe in. How could you?”

Suddenly, there were tears running down her face, and Kylo found his gloved hand rising to brush those tears away.

“Rey, you have no idea how hard things have felt with the bond closed off. To not even know whether you were safe…” His breath hitched at that last word, as though he were choking on it. “For kriff’s sake, Rey – were supposed to be _soulmates.”_

“You don’t think it was hard for me too? I feel more alone than I’ve ever felt in my life. I met my _soulmate _in an interrogation room and spent most of the last year fighting against you. I’m surrounded by people who think they know me. But they don’t. No one really knows me.” She was crying freely now, the tears flowing as easily as rain.

Kylo continued to wipe the tears away and pressed a gentle kiss to her forehead. “But I do. Rey, _I _know you. I know that in the year since we’ve met, things haven’t gone the way either of us expected. But I want to try. I want to be…better, for you.”

She looked up at him and pressed herself into his chest. As he stroked her hair, she cried more than she ever had in her life. The past year had torn her apart, physically and mentally. She had gone from thinking her soulmate had died, to meeting him in an interrogation room, to thinking he was willing to turn from the dark to her, to realizing he wasn’t ready to do that, to…whatever this was.

“Ben, I need you to tell me that we’re on the same page. That you want to defeat Palpatine because it’s the right thing to do, not because you want to take his place. I need you to tell me that you’ll leave the First Order. That we won’t fight anymore. That we can finally _be soulmates._” A sob wrenched itself from her throat. “Because short of that, I can’t think of anything you could say or do to make this relationship okay.”

Kylo cupped her cheeks with his hands. “Rey,” he whispered. “I want all of that. The conflict inside me has been tearing me apart. I know what I have to do, but I don’t know if I’m strong enough to do it. Will you help me?”

Rey sobbed a sigh of relief as she leaned up to press her lips to his. “Yes,” she whispered into his lips. “I’ll help you.”

Kylo echoed Rey’s sigh of relief, and he pulled her into a tight embrace, whispering into her hair.

“Thank you.”

***

_Breathe. _

_Just breathe. _

As Rey surveyed the shattered throne room of the fallen Death Star, she repeated the mantra Luke had once shared with her. Kylo stood across from her, his saber at his side. Rey’s heart ached to join him, but she felt an uneasy sense of déjà vu as she looked out over a scene that she felt she had seen before. They had fought and defeated the Praetorian guards together what felt like an eternity ago, and as Luke had warned her, it hadn’t gone as she thought it would. Why would this time be any different? The fact that they were soulmates didn’t seem to matter.

_Breathe._

As Rey fought to take full, calm breaths, Kylo looked up at her from the ruins of an Empire destroyed. As he looked at her, he started to pick his way through the smoking debris to reach her. He stopped a few feet before reaching her, looking up at her almost warily from the lower ground.

“Rey. It’s over. He’s gone.”  
  


Rey looked down over the scene before her. Ash. Dust. Smoke. Decay. _Kylo_. “And now what? Where do we go from here?”

Kylo took another large step toward her and Rey tensed. He was now closer than they had stood in the elevator on the way to see Snoke, and she could feel his warm breath on her cheek.

“Now, it’s up to you,” he murmured. “You can turn me in to the Resistance. You can kill me. You can let me walk free. My fate is in your hands.”

Rey’s breath caught in her throat as she fought to respond despite the dizzying effect his closeness had on her thoughts. “Why would you leave your fate to me?”

“Rey, you know why. You’ve always known.”

Rey sighed. “People keep telling me that I ‘know.’ That I have the answers. They think they know me. But no one does. Now that Palpatine is gone, I don’t know my place in all this.”

Kylo’s lips touched her ear as he whispered to her. “You’ve seen it, Rey. You can’t deny that you’ve seen where this goes.”

Rey felt a familiar heat gathering between her thighs. She _had _seen where this was heading, both in their first shared vision and in dreams during countless nights since. She had cried out at the thought of where things would eventually lead but had never dared believe her vision would actually come to fruition. She took a deep breath, then brushed her lips against his forehead. “Kylo. _Ben. _I want you to come back with me. I want us to stop fighting what I know we both feel. I want _you.”_

Almost as though her last words were a spur driving him onwards, Kylo closed the distance between them and crashed his lips to hers. They were soft, softer than they had any right to be, and Rey chased the kiss like a woman starved. As the kiss deepened, he nibbled her lower lip and nudged her lips apart with his tongue. Rey sighed and _melted _into him, forgetting for a moment that they were surrounded by death and destruction. His kisses moved to her neck, and she felt her knees weaken as he _sucked, _the pulling sensation both unfamiliar and pleasant.

“Need you,” he murmured between kisses, “Need to feel you.”

Rey began to tug at his clothes, roughly pulling his cape until it fell to the ground in a heap. She worked at his tunic next, pulling the buttons until it was loose enough to pull over his head. In response, he pulled her own tunic over her head. She inhaled sharply as he moved to remove her breast band, and he pulled away from the kiss to look at her. Despite how much she wanted this, Rey was nervous. Kriff, she’d just helped defeat Palpatine, but she was nervous at the thought of Kylo seeing her in such a vulnerable state. He gently brushed the hair from her eyes and cupped her face as he looked intently into her eyes. “Rey, you’re perfect. You have nothing to be afraid of.”

As Kylo tenderly removed her breast band, Rey worked at the clasp on his pants, her hands deftly unhooking the clasp so that she could pull them down. Divested of their clothes, Kylo cradled Rey in his arms and gently lowered her to the ground, his shucked cape acting as a barrier between them and the wreckage that lay beneath them. His huge frame towered over her, but somehow, she felt safer than she ever had. As he lowered her head to the ground, he covered her neck with kisses, and Rey felt herself soften beneath his touch. Moving lower, he pressed hot kisses to her chest and caught one of her nipples between his teeth. Rey gasped at the unexpected pleasure, her back arching to press herself closer to him as he trailed kisses to the other side. As she curved her back to meet him, his hand moved from her hip to slowly trace between her slick folds, wrenching a whimper of pleasure from her lips as he passed over her clit.

“Ben, yes, _just like that.”_ As he dipped a finger inside of her, she felt the pleasure start to build within her. She had heard that intimate relations between soulmates could be electrifying, and she was beginning to feel why they had such a reputation. As he added a second finger, she felt her core clench and her breathing start to become ragged. When he _crooked _the fingers, she felt as though she would unravel, and she practically _whimpered. _Slowly, he moved from kissing her breasts to kissing just above her center and looked up to her as though in question. She nodded frantically, and she swore she saw a small smile as he moved his lips to her centre and lapped at her clit. Her fingers and toes curled at the sensation and she swore she had never felt pleasure like this before. But it wasn’t enough. Not after all they had been through. Not after finally defeating the last evil keeping them apart.

“Please, Ben. I need to feel all of you.”

Kylo’s kisses felt almost frantic as he moved himself to her center and she slowly guided him in. Her breath caught at the initial sensation of fullness, and he stopped to look at her. She nodded, and he continued to move until he couldn’t move anymore. She gazed up at him and canted her hips to push him deeper and he _moaned_ at the feeling of being taken to the hilt. Slowly, he started to move, and Rey felt a ragged groan tear from her throat as the sensation of being _filled_ caused a warmth to spread from her centre all the way to her curling toes. As they moved in unison, their breaths became more and more ragged, and when Kylo started to circle her clit with his thumb, she _unravelled, _stars exploding behind her eyes as she came harder than she ever had before. Kylo’s hips jerked as he thrust once more, spilling into her as he felt her walls clench around him.

They clung to each other as they fought to catch their breaths. Kylo wrapped his arms around her protectively, and Rey craned her neck to look up at him.

“Ben?”

“Rey?”

“If I’d known it was going to be like that, I would have stopped fighting you a lot sooner.”

He chuckled and pressed a kiss into her hair. “No one ever said being soulmates would be easy.”


End file.
